Size of the Entire Universe Man

Avoiding my own screenplay, I pause to goggle at Ross Douthat’s suggestion that Ben Affleck should have been hired to direct the new “Star Wars” movies.

His case:

Affleck has now made not one but three movies that are better works of pulpy entertainment than anything J.J. Abrams has ever directed. And where the challenge of rescuing “Star Wars” is concerned, actual filmmaking talent might matter more than previous experience with spaceships and monsters.

Abrams’ filmography is nothing if not consistent: His “Mission Impossible,” his recent “Star Trek” and “Super 8″ are all zippy simulacra of more original pop blockbusters (the best of the three, “Super 8″ is just a pure Spielberg homage) with weightless action scenes, average scripts, and plots that only make sense if you don’t actually stop to think about them. They are not bad movies, by any stretch, and if what you’re concerned with is delivering a respectable piece of genre entertainment, he’s proven himself a safe choice. So I’m not surprised that Disney — which no doubt wants the safest possible return on its investment — went with him rather than making a more eccentric pick.

But fans of the original “Star Wars” trilogy should realize that the director of the next installment faces a bigger challenge than just serving as a capable custodian of a popular franchise, or enlivening a stale formula with some lens flares and sex appeal. That’s because the next movie will be released in the shadow of the epic, franchise-altering disaster of George Lucas’s prequels — a case, rare in the annals of pop culture, where a beloved story was ruthlessly and comprehensively torched, not by hackish studios chasing easy money, but by the very man who created it in the first place.

Thanks to Lucas, half of the official Star Wars story is unsalvageable dreck — but it’s canonical dreck, which means it can’t simply be shunted into an alternative timeline in the style of Abrams’ “Star Trek,” or dropped down the memory hole the way say, Joel Schumacher’s “Batman” movies were when Christopher Nolan set about making “Batman Begins.” Instead, the prequels have to be somehow formally accepted as part of the “Star Wars” story and artistically repudiated at the same time. That’s a much harder task than making a “Star Wars” sequel would have been back in 1995, before Lucas took a flamethrower to his legacy. And I can’t help thinking it might have been easier for a director who came to the project free of fanboy baggage, and who could cast a more dispassionate eye on a pop cultural mythology that too many people (myself included, before I was introduced to Jar Jar Binks) invested with far more significance than its creator’s talents could ultimately bear.

I’m influenced here by the fact that the best “Star Wars” movie, “Empire Strikes Back,” was directed by Irvin Kershner, a filmmaker who combined a distinct absence of sci-fi experience with an appropriate skepticism toward the man whose vision he was charged with translating into mass-market entertainment. When he set to work on “Empire,” Kershner’s previous two films were “The Eyes of Laura Mars” and “Raid on Entebbe,” both contemporary thrillers with nary a blaster to be seen. Yet the movie he made is the only “Star Wars” installment that transcends genre, and approaches art.

I obviously have no idea what the new “Star Wars” movies are supposed to be about, but I think Douthat goes wrong with his final reference to “The Empire Strikes Back.” Because that movie’s mission bears little resemblance to the mission of the director of the next batch of movies.

“Empire” followed the massive success of the original “Star Wars,” and the principal achievement of the original movie was creating a distinctive and original universe. Kershner and Kasdan could take that universe for granted, and ask the question: where do these characters go from here? How can we deepen the story? And they did a masterful job of executing on that mission.

But that’s not the mission of the director of the next set of movies. Rather, his mission is to re-create a universe that has lost much of its distinctiveness. And that kind of universe-creation has not been a hallmark of Affleck’s direction to date. Affleck is very much the heir of Clint Eastwood as a director, both of them making solid middle-brow pictures for grownups, both good at rooting their films in universes that are familiar – that are “movie real.” But they are not makers of worlds.

Abrams will undoubtedly do to the franchise exactly what Douthat expects: streamline it and make it “work” while making it less-distinctive. That’s probably what Disney wanted, because they wanted to avoid handing it to the sort of director who might recall Lucas’s failures by overstuffing their own version of Lucas’s universe. But I understand why that would be disappointing to someone with lingering affection for the franchise like Douthat.

But he shouldn’t be pining after Affleck. He should be pining after someone with demonstrated talent for universe-making who could make audiences forget the prequels and remember not “Empire” but the original “Star Wars.”

The hallmark of that original was the “dirty universe” – the contrast between the clean and sleek Empire and the rust-bucket rebels, and visually this was what was most obviously sacrificed not only in the prequels but in the changes Lucas kept imposing on his earlier, more successful films. If I were looking for a director to reboot the franchise, I’d look for somebody who I knew got that, and the obvious choice would be the director of the dirtiest universe to hit the screen in recent memory (one with Star-Wars-level odd family dynamics to boot).

Final note: as one of the few Joss Whedon skeptics, I have to disagree with Chris Orr that he’d have been a good choice to revive “Star Wars.” Wheedon’s stock in trade is a kind of witty self-awareness, where “Star Wars” depends crucially on taking the created universe completely seriously, and painting in clear, unironic emotional colors. A Whedon “Star Wars” would be radically untrue to the franchise’s roots. He’d be a better choice to re-boot “Star Trek.”

My thought was that if you want to capture something of the spirit of the original “Star Wars,” you find a director who is what Lucas was when he made it: a young independent-film director with just a couple of movies under his belt. My picks would have been Colin Trevorrow (“Safety Not Guaranteed”), who is apparently helming a “Fight of the Navigator” remake instead, or Rian Johnson (“Looper”). Failing that, I’d get Kenneth Branagh, who has experience with effects-heavy spectacle (“Thor”) as well as smaller, character-driven films (“Dead Again”) and, of course, Shakespeare, which gives him a leg up on the faux-Shakespearean dialogue that is so common in space opera.

I wonder if it’s true that the franchise needs a “universe maker.” If the problem is that Lucas hosed his own universe with too much CGI, bad storytelling, etc., it seems like there are two options:

1. Give the franchise to someone who will take it in a new direction–new look, new tone, etc. Anybody who was saying Guillermo del Toro would be a good choice probably had something like this approach in mind.

2. Give the franchise to someone who can return the franchise to its roots by making a movie (or movies) that hews closely to the look and feel of the original trilogy.

Those are the artistic considerations–I don’t necessarily think it’s an artistic cop-out to go with option two, since Star Wars is a big fun universe that can accommodate all kinds of original storytelling within the basic template.

I also think option two is a no-brainer from a financial standpoint, since you’d be able to market the movie as closely resembling films that are still very popular and very easily recognized almost 40 years after Lucas started the franchise.

If option two’s the way to go, Abrams seems like a reasonable choice. I’m not a huge fan of his, but he can clearly handle a large-scale production and even when the storytelling has run off the rails he’s always had a good sense of how to create worlds and establish tone. Douthat seems to think it’s a bad thing that Abrams was able to make a good movie that was also a feature-length homage to the look and feel of classic Spielberg movies, but I can’t see how that’s a strike against the guy tasked with making Star Wars movies in the style of the original trilogy.

I think the big issue will be whether Abrams brings in writers who can actually write, and put together a good story. If Abrams can create the right look and feel, then the writers really do have the same mission that the writers of Empire did: just tell a good story within the framework of the universe. And all the evidence of Star Wars is that simpler stories are better. It might be the case that listing the movies from best to worst yields the same result as listing the stories from least to most complex:

I have made my peace with the sad decline of Star Wars, something I loved so much as a child. When it was announced that Disney was taking over, I just figured that the arrangement made sense. I don’t expect anything more from the new sequels than I would expect from a cartoon about the further adventures of Donald Duck and Goofy. As Dubya might say, “Fool me once, shame on you. You fool me, you can’t get fooled again.”

I try not to think about “Star Wars,” but it crossed my mind that to recapture the feel of the original, Quentin Tarantino would be the man. Lucas cooked up a pulpy story of samurai and pirates fighting space Nazis, and he brought to it his love of Republic serials, Kurosawa, etc. “Star Wars” was a movie about movies. The idea of a Star Wars movie about Star Wars is always going to be revolting. But Tarantino’s movies are also movies about movies–Spaghetti Westerns, Kurosawa and samurai, blaxploitation, etc.

Rian Johnson would have been a great choice, but at the same time, I completely understand and respect why Disney hired Abrams — they just paid $2 billion (with a b!) for the franchise. That is probably one of, if not the most, expensive IP transactions of all time. They have to have a commercially proven and reliable director for the first film because that way if it tanks the management can tell the shareholders, “Hey, we hired a proven winner and it bombed, so it’s not our fault.” If Disney hired the 2013-equivalent of 1976 George Lucas to direct the picture and it bombed, management would be scalped alive at the next shareholder meeting — “You handed a guy who’s only directed two pictures, one of them a commercial flop [THX 1138], a $2 billion property?!?!?”

That said, since Disney has also already indicated that it would like to produce “side pictures” outside of the main “Episodes” storyline, I suspect that you’ll see more innovative and risky directors being hired for those projects in hopes that one of them catches fire and gets “promoted” to working on the main pictures.

@ Daniel McCarthy: I actually have no doubt that Tarantino could direct a great space opera epic, but I think he’s too cynical and tongue-in-cheek for Star Wars. He’s also never directed or produced a feature-length film with anything below an “R” rating. I know directors can tone it down, e.g. David Lynch with The Straight Story (rated “G”!), but I still have a hard time picturing Tarantino delivering a PG/PG-13 film and I suspect that Disney would be justifiably scared of the negative publicity they would get right out of the box.

Scene: Darth Sidious’ house, off hours. Decor is Louis 14thish. Sidious reclines indolently on red velvet sofa, occasionally inhaling the vapor rising from a beaker in which a toad-like creature is slowly dissolving in acid. Young males of the same species as Darth Maul with naked and oiled torsos take turns whipping each other in the background.

Shot of Darth Vader from behind on his knees before Sidious. We continue to hear the sound of leather on flesh and the grunts of the young males.

Sidious: Remove your helmet.

Vader: Yes, my master.

Close up of Vader’s burned and barren scalp rising into view like a harvest moon. Sidious’ fingers gently explore Vader’s scalp as the music rises. The finger tips tremble.

For awhile it would have made sense for Peter Jackson to take over the reigns. He managed the LOTR trilogy with aplomb and created a universe just as rich as Jackson’s. Alas The Hobbit might have disqualified him. The Hobbit was nowhere near as bad as The Phantom of Menace but both had similar flaws

Oddly enough, I think you simplify The Emprie Strikes Back production a lot. It was Irwin who was an excellent director but Lucas was very heavily in the production of the movie. In many ways, the production seemed to follow Classic Hollywood model where the producer was the vision and the director focused more on the acting and camera work. Not to say they did not have a day-to-day arguments.

That’s a good point you made about Whedon. I liked Firefly and thought Serenity was really well-done. But yeah, the whole “witty self awareness” bit might be a bad mix for SW.

But some of this comes down to the writers, no? The thing that made the original SW movies work were the characters. Han (+Chewy), Leia,… Luke sorta (whiney little punk that he was), C3PO & R2D2 and of course Vader. Those characters were good enough that Return of the Jedi is watchable, despite the “blow up the Death Star… Again!” plot and Ewoks.

The prequels sucked mostly because the characters stunk. The dialogue was absolutely awful. The acting may be been bad b/c of direction… or maybe you just can’t do much with the script they were given. I don’t know.

With a new Star Wars sequel, it’s a fine line to walk between kitsch (Steven Spielberg, James Cameron, Lucas himself), and camp (Joss Whedon, Quentin Tarantino, the Coen brothers).

J.J. Abrams is roughly equidistant between the two extremes, making him a safe choice in one respect, but unlike any of the names I just mentioned he has never shown true brilliance as a director of movies. We shall see, I suppose.

If it were up to me, I’d probably choose Whedon, as I suspect he’d treat the source material with a good deal of reverence while also reintroducing the spontaneity and wit the original trilogy had. He might have a hard time keeping it from turning into Spaceballs and/or a political tract, however.

A good dark horse candidate might be David Fincher. Think about that, Disney.

I have to say, I think the whole, “the prequel sucks” thing is one of those opinions people adopt for reasons that have little to do with the movies themselves. They were very confusing, yes. They could have been streamlined and simplified (although the plot actually makes sense when you finally figure it out). But there was all kinds of amazing worlds and machines and events all rendered a million times better than the effects in the first three. And Anikin as a sullen hormonal teen was exactly right, becasue that’s what he was, a stinking teen. And we all knew he was going to jump off that lava berg and attack Obi Wan, even though Obi Wan begged him not to. It was totally right. It’s exactly what my teen aged daughter would do in that situation. Yoda told everyone he was unstable at the begining, but would Qui Gon listen? No. But of course if he did, the dark side would have won.

But more than that, the first three are all pretty cheesy (in a good way). They are not the works of art that someone above suggested. They are popular children’s entertainment. Mark Hamil is a terrible actor. The dialogue is just as bad as in the prequels. The plots are simpler but still lame and they are very similar for all the movies. They have to destroy the death star before it destroys the planet. Someone’s hand gets cut off….

They are all flawed and they are all great. The basic story is Shakespearian (Shakespeare’s plays had terrible in-story music too). The boy who turns evil begets the son who whose moment of pain awakens him from a twenty year trance, enabling him to push back the dark side (he, Vader, is the only one strong enough to do it) thus fulfilling his role as the chosen one (and we thought it was Luke). And it was genius to start in the middle then go back to the beginning. And then finally, there are so many amazing things to see. The pod races. Leia’s golden bikini. The walkers attacking on Hroth. “I am your father, Luke.” The robot factory. The clone factory. The space cruiser rising up from the bottom of the screen at the begining of the first movie. Princess Amadala in that jumpsuit. The double sunset above tatooine. That great alien band (just kidding).

Maybe the problem is, we all saw the first three when we were kids and were expecting to experience the same kind of child-like wonder with the last three, except sixteen years had gone by and we were all adults. And Lucas had a stroke or something.

Joss Whedon is arguably the most successful “universe-creator” working today. His worlds are far more than witty banter (though that sure is fun, and the SW universe has used it before) and self-referencing irony. In fact, Whedon’s worlds are typically not self-referencing. Rather, they are immersive and comprehensively drawn with a staggering amount of detail and internal history and cultural norms. Whedon would be able to handle and incorporate as huge a mythos as he would inherit working on the SW movies. Moreover, Whedon’s work, though very much genre, is art. Between the scifi, the pulpy fighting, and the juicy intrigues, Whedon generates big huge globs of feeling, even pathos. A Whedon-helmed Star Wars would successfully incorporate the franchise’s vast mythology, a creative pot, and lively characters. It would be great.

JJ Abrams is a no-talent hack who makes glitzy, boring movies with poorly cast and even more poorly directed actors. Though admittedly, his stuff is better than Joel Schumacher’s.

Separately, cheers to BenSix and Daniel McCarthy for suggesting guys who would do an even dumber film than Abrams will, and thanks to cw for conjuring nude Sith catamites. Outstanding.

Following the Star Wars EU(non-movie canon novels and comic books developed and Ok’d by Lucas and Co.) you might well see Luke resurrect the Jedi order only to turn to the dark side and be killed or defeated in some fashion by his Light side son. It is the exact plot of the original trilogy. Alternately, they could feature the cloning of the emperor, or the invasion of the aliens that are immune to the force and whose names I can’t remember and don’t feel like googling. All of which are story lines featured in Star Wars novels and comic books.
Or they could come up with an original story line that isn’t terrible.
LoL, j/k. The new movies are in fact the tale of Jar-Jar Binks and his extended family trying to host a dinner party and experiencing a comedy of errors, with sexy results. Hilarity does not ensue.

I think this is more simple than it’s being made out to be. There’s a bevy of stories out there in paperback post Episode VI that can easily be used for the next films. All it takes is the right director to create the “mature” movie within the Star Wars universe like Empire Strikes Back.

One can criticism George Lucas for many things but at least he allowed others to expand upon the universe in written form, which forms a nice template for the Star Wars future. Would he would not do, or was reluctant to do was to allow others put their stamp on Star Wars when it came to film. Selling the rights to the universe to Disney is probably the smartest things he’s done in a long time. Now he can make the films he wants to make without having to worry about Star Wars anymore and the story can continue and come alive again for a new generation and not stagnate culturally like it has compared to say Twilight, Hunger Games, Harry Potter, LOTR as this generation massive cultural totems on the silver screen. I belive things can only get better for Star Wars.

Who directs the next “Star Wars” movie aside, the recent movie “Dredd” took place in an arguably dirtier universe and was also very good. Again, “Star Wars” direction aside, Joss Whedon’s “The Avengers” was also a very good recent movie.

No, the prequel trilogies are not “canonical dreck.” Any remake is a reinterpretation. Yes, they’re “dreck,” but reinterpretations are not obliged to follow canon. In most cases, they don’t.

In the novel, Dorothy’s slippers were silver; the witch of the north wasn’t Glinda; the wizard put the group through a traditional fairy-tale trial of threes before allowing an audience; the wicked witch wasn’t green.

In the original Peter Pan novel, Peter didn’t grow up and marry Wendy’s granddaughter Moira, but he did in Steven Spielberg’s brilliant interpretation, “Hook.”

In other words, nobody at Disney has to pay an iota of attention to the prequel movies. They can be safely ignored, and Star Wars can be “rebooted” just as Star Trek was.